Yeats and Conflicting Dualities

Summary: Explores the poetry of William Yeats, focusing on My the poem Easter 1916. Describes how Yeats explored conflicting dualities, often counterbalancing the ideal and the real. Examines how he depicts conflicting dualities.

A person who is stated as `ideal' is close to, if not, perfect. It is in the laws of human nature that every other man would wish to portray himself or herself as ideal although the actual `reality' may be otherwise. Through his poem, `Easter, 1916', William Butler Yeats puts forth the same idea which may have an intention to aid his own emotions. Yeats has portrayed contrasting dualities through two mediums, people and nature.

"Polite meaningless words, (lines 8 to 12 Stanza 1)

And thought before I had done

Of a mocking tale or a gibe

To please a companion

Around the fire at the club,"

The extract given above signifies the bitter relationship Yeats had with his friends. The very fact that the words Yeats shares with the people are meaningless shows how insignificant they are to him. The use of diction in this extract clearly tells us about...